Acts 8:39Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But what, you ask, prevented him from learning all this well while sitting in the chariot, especially in the desert? The fact that it was not clear.

“When they came up out of the water, the angel of the Lord caught Philip away.” This was well done, so that it might be manifest that what happened was the work of God, and that the eunuch might not think Philip was an ordinary man.

“And he went on his way rejoicing.” The writer says this to show that he would have grieved had he known of Philip's removal. But from the great joy he received through the Spirit, he did not even notice what happened around him.

By this same time the chief authors of Christ's death had experienced upon themselves the deserved wrath of God. Pilate, after a complaint by the Samaritans, was deprived of his office and sent to Rome for trial.

In the same year the high priest Caiaphas was deposed by Vitellius, the Syrian prefect, who began sternly to prosecute abuses by the Jewish authorities.

The Holy Spirit could descend upon the eunuch without the visible act of the laying on of hands. Later He descended upon Cornelius and his household even before baptism (Acts 10:44 and following), for, according to the Lord's word, He breathes where He wills (Jn 3:8).

“Caught Philip away”: by this expression the writer clearly intends to indicate a special supernatural action. By it Philip was instantly removed from the eunuch's sight and transported to Azotus.

The following expression agrees with this, that Philip “was found at Azotus” (v. 40). Compare Dan 14:36 and Dan 14:39.

“This was well done, so that it might be manifest that what happened was the work of God, and that the eunuch might not think Philip was an ordinary man.

“And Philip received great benefit from it. What he had heard about the prophets, about Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and others, he saw fulfilled in himself, finding that he had instantly traversed a great distance” (Chrysostom; compare Theophylact).

“He went on his way rejoicing”: he rejoiced because the desire of his heart had been fulfilled. He had been baptized, had received the Holy Spirit, and had become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He surely rejoiced also because his evangelist and baptizer had been so wondrously caught away from his sight. Like an angel from heaven, Philip had suddenly appeared to him on the road, accomplished the great work of his conversion to Christ, and suddenly was as if taken up from his sight again.

Church tradition has preserved the name of this nobleman baptized by Philip, along with some information about his later fate.

He was called Indich. After returning to his country he was its first preacher of the Gospel. He converted many, including his sovereign, the queen, whom he baptized (Nicephorus Callistus 2.6).

Perhaps because this descent of the Holy Spirit upon the eunuch was extraordinary, and seemed to place him beside those who received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it was omitted in some codices.

In any case, one must acknowledge that what is reported here was an undoubted truth. It fully accords both with the qualities of the newly baptized man himself and with his position among the Ethiopians, where he became a kind of apostle, as tradition also testifies.

Nicephorus Callistus reports in the second book that the eunuch was named Indich. He was the first evangelist in his own country and converted many to Christ, including the queen.

In new translations and in many Greek texts, the words about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the eunuch are absent. Even Saint John Chrysostom had a text in which these words were absent.

Yet they were found in some texts, and therefore entered both the Slavonic and the Russian translations. These words are precious for the fullness of the account concerning the eunuch, for whom the descent of the Holy Spirit was a great necessity.

One may also explain how the omission occurred. In all the other texts the word Spirit (Πνεύμα) is joined with “of the Lord” (Κυρίου). This same word appears further on, after a line: “the angel of the Lord” (Άγγελος κυρίου).

Perhaps an ancient copyist mistook these two words, Κυρίου, as one, through an error of the eye. Thus he wrote, “The Spirit of the Lord (Κυρίου) caught Philip away,” leaving out the words, “The Spirit of the Lord descended upon the eunuch.”

Other copyists began to repeat this error, except those who copied from more ancient texts.

The English professor Bartlett, in his commentary published in London in 1901, argues that Κυρίου, not Άγιον, should have stood here.

He bases this on the fact that Philip's being caught away is described according to the pattern of similar Old Testament cases, for example with the prophet Elijah (see 3 Kingdoms 18:12) and the prophet Ezekiel (see 3 Kingdoms 8:3).

There the form “Spirit of the Lord” is used, as here, in the older, semi-physical sense, distinct from the more typical New Testament phrase “Holy Spirit.”

Since the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the eunuch had to be understood in the New Testament sense, this reading could naturally be introduced, namely Άγιον instead of Κυρίου.

One may also allow that the texts received in the West had as their archetype an ancient text in which one column had crumbled away. This may be observed in papyri published in London in 1898 in two volumes by Grenfell and Hunt.